Pope Francis (C) watches as children release doves during the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s square at the Vatican January 26, 2014 (Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi)

Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for the start of a “constructive dialogue” in Ukraine, releasing two white doves to symbolize the hope for peace. However, the doves were immediately attacked by a crow and a seagull.

Addressing tens of thousands of people gathered in Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square for the Pope’s weekly Angelus prayer, the pontiff said that his thoughts and prayers were with the victims of the Ukrainian unrest.

“I am close to Ukraine in prayer, in particular to those who have lost their lives in recent days and to their families,” Pope Francis said.

He then raised hopes for a “constructive dialogue between the institutions and civil society,” urging both sides to avoid violence and reminding that “the spirit of peace and a search for the common good” should be “in the hearts of all.”

In a symbolic peace gesture, two white doves were then released by children standing alongside Pope Francis.

…..

A dove which was freed by children flanked by Pope Francis during the Angelus prayer, is chased by a black crow in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014.&nbsp; AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church on Monday when he announced he would stand down, the first pope to do so in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to carry on.

Church officials tried to relay a climate of calm confidence in the running of a 2,000-year-old institution, but the decision could lead to uncertainty in a Church already besieged by scandal for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests.

The soft-spoken German, who always maintained that he never wanted to be pope, was an uncompromising conservative on social and theological issues, fighting what he regarded as the increasing secularization of society.

It remains to be seen whether his successor will continue such battles or do more to bend with the times.

Despite his firm opposition to tolerance of homosexual acts, his eight year reign saw gay marriage accepted in many countries. He has staunchly resisted allowing women to be ordained as priests, and opposed embryonic stem cell research, although he retreated slightly from the position that condoms could never be used to fight AIDS.

He repeatedly apologized for the Church’s failure to root out child abuse by priests, but critics said he did too little and the efforts failed to stop a rapid decline in Church attendance in the West, especially in his native Europe.

In addition to child sexual abuse crises, his papacy saw the Church rocked by Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church’s business dealings, his butler was accused of leaking his private papers.

In an announcement read to cardinals in Latin, the universal language of the Church, the 85-year-old said: “Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St Peter …

“As from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours (1900 GMT) the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”

POPE DOESN’T FEAR SCHISM

Benedict is expected to go into isolation for at least a while after his resignation. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Benedict did not intend to influence the decision of the cardinals in a secret conclave to elect a successor.

A new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics could be elected as soon as Palm Sunday, on March 24, and be ready to take over by Easter a week later, Lombardi said.

Several popes in the past, including Benedict’s predecessor John Paul, have refrained from stepping down over their health, because of the division that could be caused by having an “ex-pope” and a reigning pope alive at the same time.

Lombardi said the pope did not fear a possible “schism”, with Catholics owing allegiances to a past and present pope in case of differences on Church teachings.

He indicated the complex machinery of the process to elect a new pope would move quickly because the Vatican would not have to wait until after the elaborate funeral services for a pope.

It is not clear if Benedict will have a public life after he resigns. Lombardi said Benedict would first go to the papal summer residence south of Rome and then move into a cloistered convent inside the Vatican walls.

The resignation means that cardinals from around the world will begin arriving in Rome in March and after preliminary meetings, lock themselves in a secret conclave and elect the new pope from among themselves in votes in the Sistine Chapel.

There has been growing pressure on the Church for it to choose a pope from the developing world to better reflect where most Catholics live and where the Church is growing.

“It could be time for a black pope, or a yellow one, or a red one, or a Latin American,” said Guatemala’s Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales.

The cardinals may also want a younger man. John Paul was 58 when he was elected in 1978. Benedict was 20 years older.

“We have had two intellectuals in a row, two academics, perhaps it is time for a diplomat,” said Father Tom Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “Rather than electing the smartest man in the room, they should elect the man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church.”

Liberals have already begun calling for a pope that would be more open to reform.

“The current system remains an ‘old boy’s club’ and does not allow for women’s voices to participate in the decision of the next leader of our Church,” said the Women’s Ordination Conference, a group that wants women to be able to be priests.

Now that Pope Benedict XVI has resigned, the speculation about his successor is already heating up. What follows is a short list of those who have been mentioned as possible candidates.

Two candidates from Italy are prominently mentioned, because Italians are abundant in the College of Cardinals: Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Vatican’s culture office. Scola’s Milan archdiocese is considered the most important in Italy, and he is known as a serious intellectual. Ravasi is also an intellectual; he is a scholar of Hegel and Nietzsche and his “Courtyard of the Gentiles” project, which engages in dialogue with artists, scientists, and even atheists, has gained acclaim. It doesn’t hurt his cause that Benedict chose him to lead the Vatican’s spiritual exercises during Lent.

Looking outside Italy, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa noted, “I think we would have a better chance of getting someone outside of the Northern hemisphere this time, because there are some really promising cardinals from other parts of the world.”

Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, who is only 56 and may be considered too young, Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, the 63-year-old archbishop of Sao Paulo, and Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 69, who spoke for Pope John Paul II when Parkinson’s disease left him silent, are all candidates.

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana, who would be the first black Pope, has been mentioned, too, although he has made statements that veered away from orthodoxy.

From North America, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Canadian Cardinal Marc Oeullet are the leading candidates. Oeullet has headed the Vatican’s office for bishops.

If the Catholic Church looks outside of Europe for a successor, it would have demographic support. In 1900, two-thirds of Catholics lived in Europe, but today, two-thirds live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, was born on 7 November 1941 at Malgrate, Milan. He was ordained on 18 July 1970 and holds doctorates in theology and philosophy.Cardinal Scola was actively involved in the Communion and Liberation Movement before becoming assistant researcher in philosophy and then assistant professor of moral theology at the University of Fribourg. In 1982 he was appointed professor of theological anthropology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and taught contemporary Christology at the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome. On 21 September 1991, he was ordained Bishop of Grosseto, subsequent to his appointment on 20 July.

The Holy Father appointed him Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University and President of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in 1995.

On 5 January 2002 the Pope appointed him Patriarch of Venice. He served as President of the Bishops’ Conference of the Triveneta region.

Relator general of the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church (October 2005).

On 28 June 2011 he was appointed Archbishop of Milan.

On 11 October 2011 he was elected President of the Bishops’ Conference of Lombardy (Italy).

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the Consistory of 21 October 2003, of the Title of Ss. XII Apostoli (Twelve Holy Apostles).

Member of:

Congregations: for the Doctrine of the Faith; for the Clergy; for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; for the Oriental Churches;

Pontifical Councils: for the Family; for the Laity; for Culture; for Promoting New Evangelization;

Council of Cardinals for Study of Organizational and Economic Affairs of the Holy See.

…

College of Cardinals

Biographical notes

[Updated: 04.11.2012]

Notice: the biographical notes are only a working instrument for the press, for the exclusive use of accredited journalists.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology, was born in Merate, Italy on 18 October 1942. He was ordained a priest of the archdiocese of Milan on 28 June 1966 and studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University and at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.He taught the Old Testament at the theological faculty of northern Italy. From 1989 to 2007 he served as prefect of the Ambrosian Library in Milan.

He has written may books, articles for L’Osservatore Romano and L’Avvenire and hosts the television show Frontiers of the Spirit.

On 3 September 2007 he was appointed titular Archbishop of Villamagna in Proconsolari and president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and president of the Pontifical Commissions for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and for Sacred Archeology (in November 2012 the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage was absorbed into the Pontifical Council for Culture),
He was consecrated on 29 September 2007.

Since March 2012 he is president of the cultural association Casa di Dante in Rome, dedicated to making the works of Dante known throughout Italy and abroad.

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of 20 November 2010, of the Deaconry of San Giorgio in Velabro (Saint George in Velabro).

Member of:

Congregation for Catholic Education;

Pontifical Councils: for Inter-religious Dialogue; for Promoting New Evangelization.

…

College of Cardinals

Biographical notes

[Updated: 26.10.2012]

Notice: the biographical notes are only a working instrument for the press, for the exclusive use of accredited journalists.

Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, O.F.M., Archbishop of Durban, South Africa, Apostolic Administrator sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of Umzimkulu, was born on 8 March 1941 in Swartberg, South Africa. He was ordained for the Franciscans on 25 July 1970 following philosophical and theological studies at the Catholic University of Louvain.After learning Xhosa, he worked in the parish of Lusikisiki and did pastoral work in Tabankulu. In 1978 he was named Apostolic Administrator of Kokstad and appointed Bishop of the same see on 29 November 1980, receiving episcopal ordination on 28 February 1981. During the turbulent changes that marked the South African political scene, he was deeply involved in mediation and negotiation work along with other national and provincial Church leaders. He served as President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference from 1987 to 1994.On 29 May 1992 he was promoted to Archbishop of Durban and on 1 August 1994 was named Apostolic Administrator sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of Umzimkulu.

President Delegate of the 2nd Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, “The Church in Africa, at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. ‘You are the salt of the earth, … you are the light of the world'” (4-25 October 2009).

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the consistory of 21 February 2001, of the Title of S. Francesco d’Assisi in Acilia (St. Francis of Assisi in Acilia).

Member of:

Congregations: for the Evangelization of Peoples; for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life;

Pontifical Councils: for Culture; for Health Care Workers;

Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organizational and Economic Affairs of the Holy See;

XIII Ordinary Council of the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops;

II Special Council for Africa of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of São Paulo (Brazil), was born on 21 September 1949 in São Francisco, Cerro Largo, Brazil. He was ordained a priest on 7 December 1976 and holds a doctorate in theology and master in philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University.He served as rector and professor at São José Minor Seminary in Cascavel and of the Seminary Maria Mãe of Igreja in Toledo. He was also rector of the Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe seminary and philosophy professor at the interdiocesan theology centre.He has served as parochial vicar, parish priest and official of the Congregation for Bishops (1994-2001).

He was appointed titular Bishop of Novi and Auxiliary of São Paulo on 28 November 2001 and was ordained a bishop on 2 February 2002.

In May 2003 he was elected general secretary of the Nationsl Bishops’ Conference of Brazil. On 12 December 2006 the Pope appointed him adjunct general secretary of the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American Bishops.

He succeeded Cardinal Hummes as Archbishop of São Paulo on 21 March 2007.

On 24 June 2008 he was appointed President Delegate of the XII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church” (5-26 October 2008).

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of 24 November 2007, of the Title of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (St. Andrew at Quirinale).Member of:

Congregation for the Clergy;

Pontifical Councils: for the Family; for Promoting New Evangelization;

Pontifical Commission for America Latina;

Council of Cardinals for Study of Organizational and Economic Affairs of the Holy See;

Cardinal Commission for the Supervision of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR);

XIII Ordinary Council of the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops.

…

College of Cardinals

Biographical notes

[Updated: 16.12.2011]

Notice: the biographical notes are only a working instrument for the press.

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, was born on 18 November 1943 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to parents of Italian descent. He was ordained a priest on 2 December 1967 and holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University.In 1971 he entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and in 1974 he served at the nunciature in Madagascar. From 1977 to 1989, he worked at the Secretariat of State. In 1989 he was posted to the United States as counsellor at the nunciature and served as papal representative at the Organization of American States.On 22 August 1991 he became regent of the prefecture of the Pontifical Household and on 2 April 1992, assessor of the section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. On 22 July 1997 he was appointed titular Archbishop of Cittanova and Apostolic Nuncio in Venezuela. He was ordained a bishop on 11 October of that year.

On 1 March 2000 he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio in Mexico and later, on 16 September, Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. On 9 June 2007 he succeeded Cardinal Ignace Moussa I Daoud as prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

He was a President Delegate of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Byshops (10-24 October 2010),“The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness. ‘Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul’ (Acts 4:32)”.

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of 24 November 2007, of the Deaconry of San Biagio e Carlo ai Catinari (Sts. Blaise and Charles ai Catinari).

Member of:

Congregations: for Doctrine of the Faith; for the Evangelization of Peoples; for Bishops;

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast (Ghana), was born on 11 October 1948 in Wassaw Nsuta, Ghana. He was ordained for the Diocese of Cape Coast on 20 July 1975 and holds a doctorate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome.

From 1975-1976 and 1980-1981 he served as staff member at St Theresa’s Minor Seminary, and from 1981-1987 as staff member at St Peter’s Major Seminary.

On 6 October 1992 he was appointed Archbishop of Cape Coast and was ordained on 27 March 1993.

He was President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (1997-2005) and member of the Pontifical Commission for Methodist-Catholic Dialogue; Chancellor of the Catholic University College of Ghana; member of the National Sustainable Development, Ministry of Environment; member of the Board of Directors of the Central Regional Development Committee and treasurer of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

Attended the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, April 10 to May 8, 1994; the 9th Ordinary General Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, October 2 to 29, 1994; the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, October 2 to 23, 2005 and the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, October 5 to 26, 2008. General Relator of the 2nd Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, “The Church in Africa, at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. ‘You are the salt of the earth, … you are the light of the world'” (4-25 October 2009).

On 24 October 2009 he was nominated President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the Consistory of 21 October 2003, of the Title of S. Liborio (St. Liborius).

Member of:

Congregation: for the Doctrine of the Faith; for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; for the Evangelization of Peoples; for Catholic Education;

Pontifical Councils: for Promoting Christian Unity; Cor Unum;

Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses;

XIII Ordinary Council of the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops;

II Special Council for Africa of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

…

College of Cardinals

Biographical notes

[Updated: 26.10.2012]

Notice: the biographical notes are only a working instrument for the press.

Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, Archbishop of New York (U.S.A.), was born on 6 February 1950 in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.

He holds a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Cardinal Glennon College, a license in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas, and a doctorate in American Church History from the Catholic University of America.

He was ordained a priest on 19 June 1976 and served as associate pastor at Immacolata Parish in Richmond Heights, Missouri. He also served as liaison for the late Archbishop John L. May in the restructuring of the college and theology programs of the archdiocesan seminary system. In 1987 he was appointed secretary to the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C.

In 1992 he was appointed vice rector of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, serving also as director of Spiritual Formation and professor of Church History. He also taught theology at St. Louis University.

He served as rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome (1994-2001), and taught church history and ecumenical theology at various Pontifical Universities.

On 19 June 2001 he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Saint Louis and titular Bishop of Natchez. He was ordained a bishop on 15 August 2001.

On 25 June 2002 he was appointed Archbishop of Milwaukee and then Archbishop of New York on 23 February 2009.

On 31 May 2010 he was sent by Benedict XVI as an Apostolic Visitator to seminaries in Ireland.

He was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on 16 November 2010.

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of 18 February 2012, of the Title of Nostra Signora di Guadalupe a Monte Mario (Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monte Mario).

Member of:

Congregation for the Oriental Churches

Pontifical Councils: for Social Communications, for Promoting New Evangelization:

XIII Ordinary Council of the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops.

…

College of Cardinals

Biographical notes

[Updated: 26.10.2012]

Notice: the biographical notes are only a working instrument for the press, for the exclusive use of accredited journalists.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, Archbishop emeritus of Québec, was born on 8 June 1944 in Lamotte, near Amos, Canada. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Amos on 25 May 1968. He holds licentiates in theology and philosophy, and a doctorate in dogmatic theology.
Cardinal Ouellet served as consultor to the Sulpicians’ Provincial Council of Canada, and then director and teacher at the Major Seminary of Montreal, where he became rector in 1990. He also served briefly as rector of St Joseph’s Seminary, Edmonton.
He was consultor to the Congregation for the Clergy, then to the General Council of the Priests of Saint Sulpice. He later taught at the John Paul II Institute at the Pontifical Lateran University, where in 1997 he was appointed to the chair of dogmatic theology.
On 3 March 2001, he was named titular Bishop of Agropoli and Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; Pope John Paul II ordained him a Bishop on 19 March of that year.
On 15 November 2002, Cardinal Ouellet was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Quebec.
Cardinal Ouellet is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology.
Relator General of the XII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church” (5-26 October 2008). On 30 June 2010 he was nominated Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the Consistory of 21 October 2003, of the Title of S. Maria in Traspontina (Holy Mary in Transpontina).Member of:

Secretariat of State (second section);

Congregations: for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments; for Catholic Education; for the Clergy; for the Doctrine of the Fait; for the Oriental Churches;

Pontifical Councils for Culture; for Promoting New Evangelization; for Legislative Texts;

In 1139 A.D. the Catholic Saint Malachy was said to have experienced visions during a trip to Rome. He subsequently put these visions to paper and penned a document containing 112 short phrases purporting to describe all future popes that would head the Catholic Church. Though not a part of official Catholic dogma or church teachings, this Prophecy of the Popes is well known by Vatican officials and church scholars because it has been remarkably accurate about naming the last 111 heads of one of the world’s oldest and most widespread religions.

According to researchers, theologians and evangelical scholars, the phrases Malachy scribed in his writings offer up the “nature, name, destiny or coat of arms” of every pope in succession and culminate with the naming of the 112th pope.

This morning, Pope Benedict XVI announced he would be retiring. Jokingly referred to as “God’s Rottweiler” in some circles, the German born 111th Pontiff as described in Malachy’s prophecy is called the Gloria Olivae, or ”glory of the olive,” which some supporters of the prophecy suggest is a reference to the Benedictine Order of monks from whom Benedict got his namesake. The monks are also known as the Olivetans, and are represented by an olive branch, leaving many to believe that Saint Malachy was, once again, right.

Now, according to prophecy, the 112th Pope will step up to head the Church, and he will be named Petrus Romanus, or Peter the Roman.

Whether you’re Catholic, Christian or not a religious person at all, the fact that a 900 year old prophecy is coming to a close is intriguing. And one way or the other, whether its predictions turn out to be true or not, the prophecy concludes with the next Pope.

Eerily, the prophecy describes the Catholic Church’s last Pontiff as overseeing a new era, and one that will be met with great difficulty and destruction:

“In extreme persecution the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman…”

“Who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible or fearsome judge will judge his people.

The End.”

Prophecy of the Popes – Attributed to St. Malachy circa 1139 A.D.

Within the Book of Revelation, also known as The Apocalypse of John, are references to the destruction of the City of Seven Hills (Rome) and to the many trials that will be faced by mankind ahead of the final judgement – the rapture, the rise of the anti-christ, seven years of tribulations, and the end of days.

Suffice it to say, if the prophecy is accurate, then the world will soon be engulfed in a battle between good and evil.

The idea by some Catholics that the next pope on St. Malachy’s list heralds the beginning of “great apostasy” followed by “great tribulation” sets the stage for the imminent unfolding of apocalyptic events, something many non-Catholics agree with. This will give rise to the false prophet, who according to the book of Revelation leads the world’s religious communities into embracing a political leader known as Antichrist.

Throughout history, many Catholic priests—some deceased now—have been surprisingly outspoken on what they have seen as this inevitable danger rising from within the ranks of Catholicism as a result of secret satanic “Illuminati-Masonic” influences. These priests claim secret knowledge of an multinational power elite and occult hierarchy operating behind supranatural and global political machinations. Among this secret society are sinister false Catholic infiltrators who understand that, as the Roman Catholic Church represents one-sixth of the world’s population and over half of all Christians, it is indispensable for controlling future global elements in matters of church and state and the fulfillment of a diabolical plan called “Alta Vendita,” which assumes control of the papacy and helps the False Prophet deceive the world’s faithful (including Catholics) into worshipping Antichrist.

As stated by Dr. Michael Lake on the front cover of this unprecedented report, Catholic and evangelical scholars have dreaded this moment for centuries. Unfortunately – as you will discover in the next 90 days – time for avoiding Peter the Roman just ran out.

Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope Is Here

The prophecy begins in 1143 with the election of Pope Celestine II, who is described in Latin as “Ex caſtro Tiberis,” or “From a castle of the Tiber.” Celestine II was born in central Italy in a city that sits on the banks of the Tiber river.

Pope John Paul II is referred to as “De labore folis,” or “from the labour of the sun,” and is the only pope to have been born on the day of an eclipse and entombed on one as well.

In its last prediction, though the prophecy refers to Petrus Romanus as the shepherd that will pasture his sheep, it may not necessarily mean the Pope will be on the side of the people, or even God. According to Thomas Horn, the author of Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope Is Here, the last pope is not the anti-christ, but he may well be the false prophet who ushers him in – a chilling thought for the billions of Catholics and Christians around the world:

The important fact is this. The very next Pope, following Pope Benedict the XVI who, according to a lot of news coming out of Rome right now – his days are numbered. He’s getting older, he’s getting feeble, he may retire…

…

The next Pope is the final one on a 900 year old prophecy.

So, imagine how historical this moment is with regard to end times bible prophecy.

By the way, the prophecy tells us that he will be the false prophet of biblical fame who will help give rise to the anti-christ.

The Last Pope? A Look at the St. Malachy Prophecy (REV)

Whether coincidence, self fulfilling through the machinations of man, or otherworldly, Malachy’s writings have certainly held the attention of the highest levels at the Vatican for centuries, and perhaps even influenced its decisions.

Now, with Benedict the XVI stepping down, we enter its final phase, and we’ll soon learn how accurate it really is.

…

Lightning strikes the Vatican — literally

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY2:39p.m. EST February 12, 2013

Papal prank? Or did lightning really hit the Vatican?

(Photo: Filippo Monteforte AFP/Getty Images)

Story Highlights

Lightning hit the same day that Pope Benedict announced his resignation

Thunderstorms were reported in Rome on Monday

Meteorologist says it looks real

I know the pope has connections, but this is extraordinary!

An apparent photo of a lightning bolt striking St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican Monday night (left) — the same day that Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, stunning the world — has gone viral.

Filippo Monteforte, a photographer with Agence France Press, told England’s Daily Mirror that “I took the picture from St. Peter’s Square while sheltered by the columns. It was icy cold and raining sheets. When the storm started, I thought that lightning might strike the rod, so I decided it was worth seeing whether – if it DID strike – I could get the shot at exactly the right moment.”

Monteforte waited for more than two hours and was rewarded for his patience with not one but two bolts, the Mirror reported.

But could it be fake? One expert, AccuWeather meteorologist and lightning photographer Jesse Ferrell, thinks it’s real. In addition to the account from Monteforte — a trusted and well-known photographer — Ferrell sees telltale signs of a genuine lightning strike.

“I believe the photo is plausible, and since it was taken by a professional, with potential video to back it up, I’d say that the photo is legitimate,” Ferrell writes on his blog.

No this is not a tangent about biblical prophecy or religious dogma. While I am a spiritual person I belong to no organized religion. I have , however, had premonitory dreams where I have seen things like the Gulf Oil Disaster, The Fukushima Tsunami and the consequent Nuclear Disaster. I have even had others that have as of yet not occurred and I hope it stays that way as they were more horrible than the two mentioned here. Those of you who understand that we are all connected to Source will understand that premonitory dreams have nothing to do with religion or belief in a particular faith. It is rather the realization of a connection that is expressed to us in a manner in which we will understand to a certain degree. The interpretations of the dreams are a whole other matter. That is the responsibility of the individual who received the message, as I believe they are given ways to understand what the content of the message meant. Either that or we who receive them are mentally unbalanced :D

Now , I am not asking anyone to believe in my dreams nor will I go into detail as that has no bearing on what I have put together here. My question is what if the Planet X theories and the Mayan Calendar theories that were disseminated and became bigger than life were actually disinfo? What if in actuality the truth were even more sinister? What if the agenda was one so heinous, so horrible that even when confronted with it one would recoil and say that is not possible?

The truth is that in the last few years and not just during the Administration of Obama. Just in case anyone thinks this is an Anti- Obama Agenda. What if the greater agenda at hand has never been about a Cataclysmic end but rather a more mundane disaster created by men? What if the New World Order Agenda would stop at nothing to achieve it’s goal. No I’m not crazy although sometimes I wish I were just so I could stop worrying about the outcome of the items I see falling into place for the termination of life as we know it as a Nation.

I have put together here articles and videos that I have come across in the last few years that may hold some clues to the event that could be in our future. Am I saying that it is written in stone? No, of course not. However, anyone with discernment would understand that there is a disturbing precedent being set forth here. For what purpose? One can only guess.

All I ask is that you view this with an open mind and think for yourselves. That is all I can do , that is all anyone can do. We cannot convince anyone, we cannot force anyone to see what we see. All we can do is set the information before you and allow you to come to your own conclusions. If you do not agree, that is your right. All I ask is that those who do not and feel a need to comment do so in a respectful manner. Any nasty, vulgar or hateful comments will be deleted and go unaddressed.

I have debated on whether I should post this for sometime now. I had not done so because I did not want to anger or offend anyone. However, yesterday I saw an article that clinched it for me and I can remain silent no longer. That article had to do with the dismantling of the Air Defense System on U.S./Mexico Border. You will find that it is the last article listed on this post at the bottom of the page. Do with it as you will. I have done what my conscience has moved me to do . I have presented the information that I have here. There are more, far too many to place on one blog post. Items such as the Patriot Act, Garden Plot, agenda 21, NDAA, SOPA, PIPA, Waters of The United States Amendment, The Food Safety and Standardization Act , the constant and ever increasing barrage on our freedoms, rights and Constitution , Codex Alimentarius, the legitimization of poisons in our foods and water , the assault on alternative medicine and therapies, the criminalization of feeding the hungry and the homeless, the militarization of Police, etc ., etc., etc. However, I believe that I have put together a good bit of the information that sets the wheels in motion for those who want to see.

Native American Prophecy

AMERICAN JUDGMENT DAY AND THE FINAL BATTLE FOR PLANET EARTH

By Paul McGuire

NewsWithViews.com

Billions of people on planet Earth do not understand that we are now approaching the final battle for our world and that everything we see happening is connected with that battle. The ancient Greek god, Prometheus gave man fire and the destructive forces of that fire have set the world aflame. The god Prometheus was a type of Lucifer, the temporary prince of this world. Prometheus represented human will and the search for scientific knowledge at all costs. For example, the race for the creation of the atomic bomb and modern Transhumanism represent Prometheus.

Mary Shelley used the term The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818). Frankenstein was the foreshadowing of the dark side of Transhumanism and genetic engineering.

According to the Biblical account, Lucifer was the most powerful angelic being, and in his lust to be God he led a revolution of one third of the angels in a war against God, so that he could seize God’s throne. This multi-dimensional battle began in the Garden of Eden, where the personal God created a man and woman in His image, using His precise DNA code.

U.S. Army prepares to invade U.S.

Uploaded on Oct 8, 2008

The plans to implement martial law in America have been taking shape for decades, hidden behind “Continuity of Government” contingency planning. Now, with public outcry over the banker bailout bill at fever pitch, all of the pieces are in place for the U.S. Army to start policing American citizens.

The idea of suspending the Constitution was first presented in the mid 1980s during the Reagan administration.

No less a thug than the drug-dealing, murder-ordering, terrorist-supporting Oliver North was knee deep in the program.

Since then every US president – George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr, and Barack Obama – have steadily created oppressive laws and legal systems to “fight terrorism” while simultaneously violating basic Constitutional rights.

Simultaneously with this, the US military has received training on how to suppress the rights of and even attack US citizens on US soil. US police have been increasingly militarized and new armed federal agencies have spouted like weeds.

Why?

Doesn’t the US have enough serious problems to attend to without the need to laboriously create new “programs” to fight non-existent or government manufactured problems?

Instead the ONLY thing the US government has done consistently over the last 30 years (besides wage illegal wars and give Wall Street criminals a “get out of jail free” card) is create new secret “internal security” laws, bureaucracies, infrastructure and armed bodies.For more The “War on Terror” is a Fraud: videos, click here

First Term: Obama Increased Debt $50,521 Per Household; More Than First 42 Presidents in 53 Terms Combined

President Barack Obama speaks in the National Archives beneath a mural of the Constitutional Convention, which depicts James Madison handing the final draft of the Constitution to George Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

(CNSNews.com) – During Barack Obama’s first term as president of the United States, the debt of the federal government increased by $5.8 trillion, which exceeds the combined debt accumulated under all presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton.

The new federal debt accumulated in Obama’s first term equaled approximately $50,521 for each of household in the country.

On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was first inaugurated, the total debt of the federal government was $10,626,877,048,913.08, according to the U.S. Treasury. As of the close of business on Jan. 17, the last day reported by the Treasury before Obama’s second inauguration, the total debt of the federal government was $16,432,631,489,854.70.

Thus, from Obama’s first inauguration to his second, the federal government’s debt grew by $5,805,754,440,941.62.

Pretty speeches that show an Agenda way beore Sandy Hook ever happened.

Blame on an assault weapon that has been proven never to have entered Sandy Hook Elementary

Hypocrisy stating that assault weapons should not be allowed on the streets but rather on the battlefield. When his Administration is responsible for how many guns and assault weapons were allowed to be put in the hands of Mexican Cartel members?

Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver provides an update to the media after he and his team examined the victims’ bodies at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown following Friday’s mass shooting.

The hypocrisy of it all is stunning. While screaming, “GUNS ARE BAD!” to American farmers, ranchers and citizens, the government is buying up billions of dollars worth of guns and ammo itself. This isn’t ammo to be used in a foreign theater of war, by the way, it’s ammo that can only be used domestically, against the American people. (The hollow point ammo violates international war treaties and so cannot be used in international war actions.)

To help us all visualize the hypocrisy in the government’s gun control schemes, I came up with our latest Counterthink cartoon.

(NaturalNews) You can tell a lot about a person by assessing what they purchase. It’s called “consumer profiling,” and corporations do it all the time. That’s how those grocery store loyalty discount programs work, by the way — they profile your psychology by analyzing what you’re buying. From that information, they can target you for coupons, mailers and other marketing campaigns that “magically” speak to your particular interests. It’s not magic, of course; it’s just behavioral profiling.So what happens if we profile the purchasing behavior of the U.S. government? What do we find?Bullets, bullet-proof roadside checkpoint booths, and anti-radiation pills.

450 million rounds of hollow points to be used against the American people

Just a few weeks ago, the federal government initiated a contract for acquiring 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition. “The special hollow point effectively passes through a variety of barriers and holds its jacket in the toughest conditions,” says a press release from the award winner, ammunition manufacturer ATK. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-co…). This ammo is for the Department of Homeland Security as well as ICE.

Question: What does DHS intend to do with 450 million rounds of barrier-piercing hollow point ammunition?

The really important answer is that no one buys hollow point bullets for target practice. They’re too expensive. Practice ammo is always FMJ ammo (Full Metal Jacket), meaning it has a solid tip. But the far more expensive hollow point ammo is ballistically designed to shred internal organs upon impact. It’s the kind of ammo used by police officers who want to shatter the bad guy’s sternum as quickly as possible and thereby bring him to the ground where he bleeds out from internal tissue trauma.

The DHS is a domestic agency. It does not fight wars overseas. It almost exclusively concerns itself with the American people on American soil. That the DHS is contracting to buy 450 million rounds of hollow point ammo can only mean DHS plans to need this ammo to be used against the American people.

Do the math: That’s almost two bullets for every man, woman and child in America — all in the hands of a government agency that says you should spy on your fellow citizens because they might be terrorists. The message is clear: Government is good, citizens are bad. And DHS feels it needs 450 million rounds of hollow point ammo to keep the American people in line, apparently. For what other purpose would so much hollow point ammo be purchased?

Bullet-proof roadside checkpoint booths

If you’re still not convinced that the USA is rapidly devolving into a fascist police state with TSA and DHS goons feeling your genitals at the airport and randomly searching your bags on city busses, DHS has now bought tens of millions of dollars worth of bullet-proof roadway checkpoint booths featuring level-3 bulletproof glass (http://www.prisonplanet.com/after-huge-ammo-buy-dhs-purchases-bullet-…).

It forces us to ask the obvious question: For what purpose does the DHS need thousands of bulletproof checkpoint booths?

Once again, the answer is obvious: To quickly erect “show us your papers” checkpoints on roadways, highways and key traffic points nationwide.

And in Houston, the TSA has unleashed a network of bus-riding secret agents to spy on citizens and search their bags on city busses. What’s next, are they going to feel your genitals on the bus, too? You might be hiding a bomb in your anus, you know…

Do you think it is a coincidence that DHS is sourcing 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets at the same time it is buying thousands of bulletproof checkpoint booths and hardened armored assault vehicles?

You may have also noticed cable barriers being installed along the medians of roadways across the country, by the way. Where there used to be just open grass, they are now pouring concrete, setting metal posts, and connecting them with multiple strands of high-strength steel cables. Have you figured out the purpose of these yet?

Isn’t it obvious? They’re designed to make it impossible for people to pull a U-turn and avoid the checkpoint booths that will soon be appearing! (And staffed by DHS and TSA agents wielding .40 hollow point bullets, no less.)

Are you starting to see the bigger picture here?

$400,000 in radiation fallout pills

In addition to the hollow point ammo and the bulletproof checkpoint booths, the U.S. government has also purchased $400,000 worth of potassium iodide pills — the kind of pills you take to avoid damage to your thyroid in the wake of radioactive fallout.

Isn’t it interesting that the U.S. government is purchasing massive quantities of radiation protection pills, but when the Fukushima disaster struck in 2011, President Obama urged the American people to “do nothing” and assured them that they did not need to buy potassium iodide pills?

So here we have yet another case where the U.S. government is getting prepared while urging American citizens to AVOID getting prepared!

Isn’t it time YOU got prepared?

Why would DHS need so many bullets and booths?

It’s obvious that DHS is buying all this gear to be used against the American people. But why?

Here, I reveal a rational list of possible explanations for this behavior. These are what I see as possible situations that would result in DHS activating their plans to take over America’s roadways and set up armed checkpoints across the nation:

• Fukushima disaster followed by radiation wave. This would result in a mass of refugees fleeing the West Coast.

• Grid down. This is a worst-case scenario, actually, which would result in mass death across U.S. cities. Huge outflows of refugees would be met by DHS checkpoints. Admittedly, some of these checkpoint booths might actually be handy for small cities and towns to protect themselves from fleeing desperate refugees from the larger cities.

• Financial collapse followed by social unrest. In this scenario, the checkpoints would be used to limit travel and control a very unhappy population.

• False flag terror attack followed by declaration of Martial Law. The checkpoints would be used like they were in East Germany. “Show us your papers!” Anyone who doesn’t have the right papers gets arrested, beaten, raped, tasered and thrown in one of Obama’s secret prisons authorized by the NDAA.

• Pandemic outbreak and quarantine of cities. In this scenario, the checkpoints would be used to keep people IN the cities, preventing their escape. (Escape from New York, eh?)

• No emergency at all: DHS could decide to just implement all the checkpoints even without any event happening. It could all be put in place merely as part of their prisoner training agenda, which the TSA has been carrying out for years in the airports. Sort of a “get used to living in a police state” psychological tactic. I have no doubt that even if thousands of these checkpoints were put in place right now, all the government-worshipping, boot-licking Americans would bow down and praise the DHS for “keeping them safe” by borrowing a page right out of Nazi Germany.

Record gun sales across America… what does it mean?

DHS is without a doubt gearing up for something big. Yeah, BIG. At the same time, Americans are buying firearms in record numbers — as in millions of guns a month.

My friend, a deputy Sheriff who runs a gun store, says he has to “pull 20 strings” just to keep rifles in stock. They are flying off the shelves like nothing he’s ever seen before in over two decades of business. Multiple firearms companies in the USA have publicly announced they are REJECTING all new orders from retailers because they are so backlogged in manufacturing guns that they can’t even keep up.

By my estimates, Americans have already purchased over 10 million firearms in just the first four months of 2012. And the numbers just keep growing.

What’s going on with all this?

Regardless of what you think about firearms, the honest answer is that Americans are legally and lawfully arming to the teeth. They are stockpiling ammo like never before. They’re buying emergency medical supplies and stored food. One home builder I know told me he’s working on a luxury subdivision in a major U.S. city where every single homeowner opted to build a “bunker room” inside the house as an add-on. (I had no idea…)

If you don’t run in these circles, you may not be aware of all this. But I’ve got friends in law enforcement, in the military, former intelligence officers, people in the food industry, and so on. They feed me info on a regular basis, and what they’re telling me is that both the government and the (informed) public are all stockpiling like never before, and a lot of people are getting nervous about the possibility of Martial Law or government confiscation of food, farms, guns, gold and more.

If this is all news to you because you’ve never heard this before, you should be even more concerned because it means you’re probably behind the curve on all this. If you don’t own a firearm, rest assured that most of your neighbors probably do by now (depending on where you live, of course). And huge numbers of them are also taking classes and seminars on how to use those firearms in self defense. Just call any of the major instructional schools (Gunsight, Thunder Ranch, etc.) and ask them yourself. You’ll find out that their classes are all sold out, or that they’re added new classes like mad in order to keep up with the demand.

How can we avoid conflict?

You’ve probably already figured out that all this purchasing of guns and ammo could be a disastrous recipe if the government begins to see the American people as the enemy. There are signs this is already under way, with even the Boy Scouts now being trained to target U.S. veterans as if they were enemy terrorists.

In a recent interview on the Alex Jones Show, survival author James Wesley Rawles (www.SurvivalBlog.com) warned that any government attempt to disarm the U.S. public would be disastrous and end in total failure. The American people are already armed to the teeth, and they’re getting even MORE armed by the day. Yet Attorney General Eric Holder has been conspiring with Janet Napolitano to try to outlaw the Second Amendment by running guns into Mexico and blaming the resulting gun violence on lawful gun owners. This is the whole “Fast & Furious” fiasco (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=50807).

There is also talk that if Obama is reelected, he may seek to ban all semi-auto firearms, which means most ranch rifles, handguns and even many shotguns. This is also driving large numbers of people into the gun shops to buy up the available inventory like never before. In the gun shop I visit in Austin, there’s a poster on the wall of President Obama, labeled, “Salesman of the Year.” Truth be told, no President has resulted in more guns getting into the hands of private citizens than Obama!

Even the parts backlog is getting bad. I’ve run into this myself: Just ordering gun parts has turned into a nightmare, with 2-3 month wait times on many parts. I recently tried to purchase some new holster gear and had to wait 8 weeks for it. When I spoke to the retailer, they told me “Everything is being bought up by returning veterans” who are gearing up at home.

Something huge is taking shape, and my Spidey Sense is getting a really bad vibe about it. I can only hope and pray that whatever comes down does not involve the government making a really bad miscalculation and thinking it can nullify the Bill of Rights and try to disarm the American public. That would be a terrible mistake that could result in a huge loss of life. What government needs to do right now is find some humility and stop destroying the United States Constitution and crushing our rights and freedoms.

Yet, regrettably, that’s not what I see happening. All across the country, I see government (both national and local) becoming more arrogant, more combative, and more thuggish in their behavior. Just look at the inexplicable actions of the Michigan DNR which now unleashes arms “hit squads” of government agents to mass slaughter farmers’ livestock using armed farm raids (http://www.naturalnews.com/035585_Michigan_farms_raids.html).

Or look at Darrin McBreen’s recent visit to Roswell, GA, where brutish-looking local cops warned the InfoWars crew to “stop filming the City Hall” and backed this up by claiming “There is no such thing as public property in Georgia.” (Yeah, seriously. This recording was played on national radio.)

In California, we’ve got the illegal and highly suspect raids against raw dairy farmers, and in Pennsylvania, cops steal children away from mothers in hospitals and have them forcibly vaccinated (i.e. sterilized) as part of a population control agenda.

Government is not getting less arrogant, but MORE arrogant across this nation. And I fear it can only end in something disastrous. The People will not put up with tyranny forever. There is a point beyond which people figure they have nothing left to lose and they take action to restore their fundamental liberties. This is the lesson of history, repeated over and over again, nation by nation, throughout recorded human history.

Where will YOU be in all this?

I urge you to stay safe

I plan to be hunkered down at a ranch in Austin, Texas. Got my chickens, goats, rain barrel and ranch rifle. I’ll be joining forces with the local Sheriff to stop looters, if it comes to that, and I’ll be growing medicinal herbs to use in first aid treatment (I’ve actually already planted quite a collection). Who knows, I may end up running refugee duty, providing emergency medical care to refugees fleeing the city of Austin itself.

Now, you may not agree with my analysis of all this, but these contract numbers don’t lie. DHS is really buying hundreds of millions of ammunition rounds. Private citizens are really buying millions of guns every month. And even if you don’t believe in owning firearms yourself, this is nevertheless the reality of what’s happening around you. I urge you to have a strategy that deals with this reality in an informed, compassionate and yet determined way. Things are shifting rapidly. The government is in mass stockpiling mode. Citizens are convinced something big is about to happen. We’re four months into 2012 and there are a lot of people who think December, 2012 is going to be a chaotic time (I personally don’t believe in all the Mayan calendar stuff, but that’s just my view).

I know I’ll be ready, but I’m concerned that many NaturalNews readers aren’t as ready as they should be. I want you to do well through hard times. I want you to be safe, to have crucial skills, and to be part of the solution rather than the problem. People who fail to get prepared become part of the problem, but people who get prepared in advance can help provide critical supplies and skills to their local community, thereby reducing the burden on law enforcement and emergency services.

Be part of the solution. Get prepared now for whatever might be coming. And think hard about why DHS is contracting to acquire 450 million bullets to be used domestically.

The writing is on the wall, folks. If you can’t read it when it’s all this blazingly obvious, there’s not much else I can say to help ya.

Action items

3) Keep reading NaturalNews and other top alternative news sites which are really becoming the new mainstream news sites. Infowars.com, NoMoreFakeNews.com, NaturalNewsRadio.com, and so on. At these sites, you’ll learn a wealth of information about what’s really coming down (Fukushima, Martial Law, War with Iran, etc.).

Stay informed and you’ll stay safe. That means you can save yourself from becoming a desperate refugee when the SHTF.

My preparedness philosophy, by the way, is:

1) Get prepared and get out of the big cities.
2) Stockpile now while you still can.
3) Support local law enforcement to restore order.
4) Share resources to help those less fortunate.
5) Grow your own food and medicine, and share seeds!
6) Resist tyranny. Restore the Republic.

A news report today indicates that the Social Security Administration has purchased 174,000 rounds of ammunition, adding the agency to a growing list of federal agencies that have purchased multithousands of rounds of ammo over the last six months.

The type of ammunition government agencies are buying is troublesome to many observers. The agencies have purchased hollow point bullets which are designed to expand once they enter their target in order to do the most damage to the victim.

Not only has the Social Security Administration purchased multithousands of rounds of hollow point bullets but so have the Department of Homeland Security and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The official explanation for the ammunition is preparation for the possibility of civil unrest during a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a complete economic collapse.

At the end of July, two of Congress’s most virulent gun haters, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representative Carolyn “What’s a Barrel Shroud?” McCarthy (D-NY), introduced S. 3458 and the identical H.R. 6241 in their respective Congressional chambers. Called the “Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act of 2012,” S. 3458/H.R. 6241 would not only ban ammunition sales over the internet, but would require federal licensing of ammunition dealers, mandate burdensome record keeping on the part of said dealers, and require them to report sales of more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition within a five day period to any one customer.

The method by which the bills would ban online sales, incidentally, is by requiring would-be buyers to present photo identification at the point of purchase–a requirement that we are told (by the same sorts of people who tend to favor restrictive gun laws) is “vote suppression,” and “racist,” when imposed on would-be voters.

Lautenberg’s and McCarthy’s latest attempt to infringe on that which shall not be infringed came, as is typical for them, right on the heels of an atrocity to exploit–this time the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre, for which the accused shooter had stocked up with 6,000 rounds (not 60,000, as the reliably anti-gun Bill O’Reilly hysterically claimed) of ammunition.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has awarded defense contractor ATK with an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreement for .40 caliber hollow point ammunition. According to an official ATK press release, U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over a five-year period.

The following is an excerpt from the press release:

ATK announced that it is being awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreement from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS, ICE) for .40 caliber ammunition. This contract features a base of 12 months, includes four option years, and will have a maximum volume of 450 million rounds.

ATK was the incumbent and won the contract with its HST bullet, which has proven itself in the field. […]

“We are proud to extend our track record as the prime supplier of .40 caliber duty ammunition for DHS, ICE,” said Ron Johnson, President of ATK’s Security and Sporting group.

The hollow point, of course, features a pitted or hollow tip intended to expand upon entering its target. ATK says its ammunition is “engineered for 100-percent weight retention, limits collateral damage, and avoids over-penetration” — all hallmarks of the hollow point.

Terror threats appear to be on the rise as FEMA has rushed a $1 Billion order of dehydrated food in the event of attacks on domestic targets in the US.

This is also coming on the heels of one of the largest terror drills performed by the US Navy on American soil, as Operation Solid Curtain is taking place this week.

In an article Tuesday from the Beaufort Observer, many of the largest suppliers of dehydrated foods in the country are dropping their distributors and customers to dedicate their resources to supplying a billion dollar FEMA request and purchase.

One of the nation’s largest suppliers of dehydrated food has cut loose 99% of their dealers and distributors. And it’s not because of the poor economy. It’s because this particular industry leader can no longer supply their regular distribution channels. Why not? Because they’re using every bit of manufacturing capacity they have to fulfill massive new government contracts. Look, the government has always been a customer of the industry to some extent. But according to our sources, this latest development doesn’t represent simply a change of vendor on the government’s part. It’s a whole new magnitude of business.

What does America stand for? That question is a lot more complicated than you might think. Our Founding Fathers established a Republic that was based on a set of shared values that were embodied in the text of the U.S. Constitution. But today, many of our politicians openly disregard the Constitution whenever they want and it has become fashionable to mock the U.S. Constitution. For example, the New York Times recently published a piece by Georgetown University Professor Louis Michael Seidman entitled “Let’s Give Up On The Constitution” in which he publicly called the Constitution “archaic” and “downright evil”. This is a man that has been teaching constitutional law to the next generation of lawyers at one of the top universities in the nation for nearly 40 years. Unfortunately, Seidman is not an aberration. The truth is that law schools all over America are absolutely packed with professors that teach that we should consider the U.S. Constitution a “living, breathing document” that must “evolve” as society evolves. They also teach that when we find something in the Constitution that does not work for us today that we should just ignore it. In fact, in his New York Times article Seidman insisted that “constitutional disobedience” is “as old as the Republic”. But if we can just ignore the U.S. Constitution whenever we want, where does that leave us? Should we be able to ignore all laws when they are not convenient for us?

Personally, I strongly believe that we should follow the U.S. Constitution, and there are millions of others out there that agree with me. If we want to amend the Constitution, there is a procedure for doing that, but it is not easy. Our founders did that to try to ensure that any changes to our Constitution would reflect an overwhelming consensus of the American people.

But today America is more divided than ever before. We can’t seem to agree on much of anything. We are at a period in our history when we desperately need to come together, but instead we are constantly at each other’s throats.

Is there anything that truly unites us anymore?

In the old days, if you would have asked people to give you a one word definition of America, many people would have responded by naming important values such as “freedom” and “liberty”.

Sadly, much of the country appears not to even value those things any longer. One poll found that 51 percent of all Americans believe that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.” Other surveys have found similar results.

Not only that, we continue to elect control freak politicians from both political parties that appear to be obsessed with constantly eroding our freedoms and liberties. There are literally millions of ridiculous laws, rules and regulations that govern even the smallest details of our lives, and the government is constantly inventing new ways to watch, track, register, monitor and control all of us. If you doubt this, please see this article and this article. If we continue down this path, we are going to end up in a very dark place as a nation.

Well, what about economics?

Aren’t we united by a common economic philosophy?

Sadly, no we are not.

In the old days, Americans overwhelmingly believed in free market capitalism and overwhelmingly rejected socialism, but now that is rapidly changing.

According to a stunning Pew Research Center survey, 49 percent of Americans in the 18 to 29 age bracket have a positive view of socialism while only 46 percent of Americans in that same age bracket have a positive view of capitalism.

So what will the future look like if we continue to see this kind of shift among our young people?

And of course we have not had anything even close to a true free market system in the United States in a very, very long time. Our economy is dominated by a partnership between the federal government and the monolithic predator corporations that dominate our society. Individuals and small businesses that try to compete are being absolutely suffocated. Our Founding Fathers were very suspicious of all large concentrations of power, and they sought to greatly limit the power of both the federal government and of the big corporations. But today we have gone totally in the other direction.

Well, is there anything else that truly unites America?

What about religion?

Of course it is true that the overwhelming majority of the early colonists were Christian, and even 50 years ago it would have been accurate to say that America was a “Christian nation”, but that is definitely no longer the case today.

The number of Americans with no religious affiliation has absolutely exploded in recent years. It has grown by a whopping 25 percent over the past five years, and meanwhile the percentage of people that identify themselves as “Christians” in America is dropping like a rock. In fact, one poll found that the percentage of Protestants in the United States has dropped below 50 percent for the first time ever. For many more shocking numbers that show the precipitous decline of Christianity in America, please see this article.

So what fundamental principles do most Americans actually agree on?

And I am not talking about things like “American Idol is going downhill” or “Justin Bieber gets too much attention”.

Is there still a core set of shared values that the entire nation can agree upon?

If not, where does that leave us?

Unfortunately, I think that it leaves us in a very difficult place. The divisiveness that we have seen in Washington D.C. in recent years is just the tip of the iceberg. We are living in a nation today that is more divided than I can ever remember. A whole host of opinion polls have shown that anger and frustration in America are rising to very dangerous levels, and instead of focusing on the real reasons for our problems we all tend to point the fingers at one another.

In America today, we have been trained to group ourselves together by certain “categories” and to see those on the other side as “the enemy”. This is a very dangerous thing. It keeps the American people from coming together to fix the very serious problems that are facing our country.

The truth is that we are being divided in dozens of different ways today. The following are just a few of the ways we are currently being divided…

Government : Security – Disaster Management

October 6, 2012 by legitgov

Remember Homeland Security’s recent big ammo shopping spree? Well. FEMA Ordered to Prepare For ‘Mass Fatality Planning’ in Bill Introduced Into Congress 06 Oct 2012 H.R. 6566: To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide guidance and coordination for mass fatality planning, and for other purposes. This Act may be cited as the “Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act“. Section 504 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 314) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: “(c) PREPAREDNESS FOR MASS FATALITIES. In carrying out this section, the Administrator shall provide guidance to and coordinate with appropriate individuals, including representatives from different communities, private sector businesses, non-profit organizations, and religious organizations, to prepare for and respond to a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster [nuclear melt-downs, CIA false flags, and pharma-terrorists’ pandemics] that results in mass fatalities”. Accordig to GovTrack.us, ‘This bill was assigned to a congressional committee on September 28, 2012, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole.’ [Why are WE always the guinea pigs for the US government’s chemtrail spraying, biological weapons testing, false flags, pandemics, and scopolamine-fuelled shooting sprees? Why not bank on and plan for your OWN demise — for once — instead of OURS? –LRP]

The Department of Homeland Security is rushing to finish the acquisition of 750 million rounds of high-power ammunition that has already raised many eyebrows. In one week, the DHS should start expecting an arsenal that will make some armies jealous.

The DHS has updated a solicitation originally posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website earlier this year, now answering questions from prospective contractors about an inquiry the agency published back in April. All responses to the DHS’ request for hundreds of millions of rounds of high-power ammunition must still be sent in by August 20, but now the federal agency designated to thwart terrorism on the home front has answered some questions about what exactly they are looking for in terms of being able to blow stuff up.

In April, the DHS first published a solicitation “for commercial leaded training ammunition (CLTA) of various calibers for law enforcement officer firearms training courses” to be used at facilities in the states of Georgia, New Mexico, Maryland and South Carolina, as well as other unnamed DHS offices across the country. At the time the DHS demanded hundreds of thousands of test rounds for an array of ammunition types, including 209,000 rounds of #00 buckshot 8-pellet bullets for 12 gauge guns and more than 2 million shots for a .357 Sig Caliber. With their solicitation set to expire in less than a week, though, the DHS has taken it upon themselves to answer questions from contractors interested in their very pricey proposal.

In the latest amendment, published online over the weekend, the DHS answers such pressing questions as, say, “Would a 223 Rem 64Grain soft point round be acceptable?” in response to their initial request for 1.1 million rounds of .223 Rem Caliber 62.64 Grain JHP. (And, if you’re wondering, the official DHS-authored answer is, “Yes, that would be acceptable.”)

The DHS does not, however, answer why exactly they want to give its federal agents tasked with counterterrorism around 750 million rounds of ammo. On paper the proposal says their request is to fulfill training exercise requirements, but why is the DHS equipping their officers with the know-how to shoot a basketball-size hole in a human body?

And for those not keeping score, already this year the DHS has asked for upwards of 150 sets of full-body armor specifically to prepare law enforcement for any protests at the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other events of national significance. Oh, and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has admitted that she wants the agency to accumulate more surveillance drones to conduct domestic surveillance for the sake of “public safety.”

But don’t worry: millions of rounds of high-powered ammo, stealth surveillance craft and an army of heavily armored federal agents is all for your own security.

According to the 2001 Executive Order that established the DHS signed by then-President George W Bush, the agency “will coordinate the executive branch’s efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.”

The United States Congress has passed a bill which mandates the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to prepare for “mass fatality planning” and funeral homes, cemeteries and mortuaries being “overwhelmed” in the aftermath of a mass terror attack, natural disaster or other crisis.

The legislation amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to direct FEMA to “provide guidance and coordination for mass fatality planning, and for other purposes.”

Noting the necessity for emergency preparedness in relation to terror attacks, natural disasters and man-made disasters, the bill instructs FEMA to be sensitive to the fact that Jews and Muslims require bodies to be buried within 48 hours of death.

“Funeral homes, cemeteries, and mortuaries could be overwhelmed should mass fatalities arise from a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster,” states the legislation.

Should the bill be given the green light by the Senate, the full amended text to the Homeland Security Act will state;

“Preparedness for Mass Fatalities- In carrying out this section, the Administrator shall provide guidance to and coordinate with appropriate individuals, including representatives from different communities, private sector businesses, non-profit organizations, and religious organizations, to prepare for and respond to a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster that results in mass fatalities.”

“This is just one of those things that makes the stomach turn: the people who brought us the National Defense Authorization Act (authorizing the detention of US citizens on US soil) now deem it prudent to prepare for mass fatalities on US soil,” writes Simon Black.

“FEMA, as you may recall, is the same organization that couldn’t get bottles of water delivered to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina… and held up hundreds of seasoned volunteer emergency service workers from entering the city for several days of mandatory sexual harassment training.”

The legislation will only serve to stoke more paranoia that the federal government is preparing for mass civil unrest that could lead to a declaration of martial law and require lethal force to be used, as it was during Hurricane Katrinawhen police were ordered to shoot looters.

The Department of Homeland Security has been arming itself to the teeth over the course of the last six months, purchasing ammunition in jaw-dropping quantities.

As we reported last month, following controversy over its purchase of around 1.2 billion bullets in the last six months alone, the DHS has put out a new solicitation for over 200 million more rounds of ammunition, some of which are designated to be used by snipers.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

While Fukushima Poisons And Sets Us All Up For A Slow Death And Not a Damn Thing Is Being Done About It. The Tragedy Of Colorado Is Being Used To Fast Forward An Unconstitutional Agenda. Can Anyone Say Psy-Ops?

Problem is the Fukushma disaster and its ramifications do not serve to further t he unconstitutional agenda of Gun control and Disarming the People. therefore we and our children are left in the dark being poisoned by the very air we breath and the food we eat, even the water that we drink because of Fukushima Radiation and not a word is said.

Why are so many allowing their attention to be misled? Yes the deaths are a tragedy no one is denying that. However , history has a way of repeating itself and if the Agenda of Gun Control is rammed down our throats the Tragedy in Colorado will seem like a walk in the park. Our Sovereignty, Our Way Of Life, Our very existence is on the line and no one wants to see it. Why the Apathy towards a disaster that can clearly affect us all Globally , not just locally? Why is no one more concerned? Are we asleep or just kidding ourselves?

Wake up people and smell the bacon burning because we are way past the cooking phase.

[NOTE: Half-life is the time taken for a radioactive substance to decay by half.] * Cesium-134 ~ 2 years * Cesium-137 ~ 30 years * Iodine-131 ~ 8 days * Plutonium-239 ~ 24,200 years * Ruthenium-103 ~ 39 days [Ruthenium is a fission product of uranium-235.] * Ruthenium-106 ~ 374 days * Strontium-90 ~ 28.85 years [Strontium-90 is a product of nuclear fission and is found in large amounts in spent nuclear fuel and in radioactive waste from nuclear reactors.] * Uranium-234 ~ 246,000 years * Uranium-235 ~ 703.8 million years * Uranium-238 ~ 4.468 billion years

A piece of a building believed to have washed onto Newport’s beaches from Japan’s recent quake and Tsunami is something both tourists and locals are viewing with concern as more dead sea life and other junk from Japan’s crisis continues to wash ashore.

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EUGENE, Ore. — The crisis in Japan has spawed new warnings about radiation effecting drinking water and food Tokyo, while local environmentalists here in the Eugene region think there could be ramifications here along the West coast if Japan’s nuclear reactors are not fully reparied.

Meanwhile, this post-Tsunami period along the nearby central Oregon coast – in Newport and other communities that depend upon “Spring Break” business as a boost after a long winter — “has been very quiet, with no Spring Break crowds in sight,” said one Newport business owner.

Tsunami’s wrath continues along area beaches

The never ending recession and nuclear radiation crisis in Japan is still felt along the central Oregon coast where Spring Break is way down, while tourist seem wary of just how “clean” the beach air and Pacific; meanwhile, post-Tsunami waves – blown in on currents from Japan — bring in all sorts of stuff with news, to include chilling images of people in Tokyo under a water ban due to high radioactive iodine levels that are also causing vegetable contamination and “infection” fears.

The U.S. government has also reacted to Japan’s nuclear reactors leaking radiation, and has ordered new safety checks of all nuclear reactors in the United States, after it was disclosed that 14 American nuclear reactors had “problems.” As Japan’s radioactive crisis continues so do fears along America’s West coast that more ill wind — in the form of new earthquake triggered Tsunami’s or even radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant – will continue to put radioactive particles into the atmosphere. On Thursday morning, Japan’s public television station “NHK” reported “spreading radiation levels worldwide.”

For example, the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency says the recent radiation levels that are usually around 2.7 millisieverts (mSv) is now over 8.0mSv in some parts of the West coast of Britain in Cornwall and other regions that receive air current flows from the Japan region. Moreover, high 7, 8 and 9 mSv along the West coast, with a report from British Columbia that radiation is “not normal.”

Moreover, both the BBC and Japanese national television reports out Thursday note how “the tap water alert in Tokyo is anxiety levels soaring over the nation’s food and water supply. Residents in Tokyo are reportedly clearing the supermarket shelves of tap water. Also, milk, spinach and other vegetables from areas near the Fukushima plant were found to have radiation levels higher than regulated standards.”

Radiation drives people from homes, as they also lose water and food

In addition, NHK broadcasts on Thursday morning included news from the Fukushima prefecture – where the nuclear plant began a meltdown after the recent quake in Japan – that the Japanese government has order people to not eat “certain vegetables” because they may be contaminated. Fear of “infection” from the many horrors of radiation sickness is also spreading, reports the NHK.

Meanwhile, there’s a black lash against nuclear reactors when people ask ‘is nuclear energy worth a devastating accident that takes away one’s water and vegetables?’ According to a recent CBS News poll about 50 percent of Americans are against nuclear energy and say they want a cleaner environment and safe energy sources.

Smoldering nuclear reactors and high cost of food and gas hurt locals

Accidents can be devastating, “just look what happened in Japan,” said one Spring Break tourist along Newport’s trendy Nye Beach Wednesday while the lack of whale sightings – due to the gray whales’ northward migration being disrupted by the recent Tsunami – has bummed-out the kids who look forward to this whale watch week along the central Oregon coast.

The whale’s migration is a serious to whale watch fans who come to the central Oregon coast this time each year to enjoy the gray whale pods that sometimes put on a show with a dozen or more huge whales jumping up out of the sea and splash down.

Now, there’s a clear and present danger that whales, other sea life and man may be in real danger as people who once lived in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture area – that was famed for its lush and beautiful surroundings and many organic gardens and ancient nature centers, are now “latterly banned from Paradise, because the earthquake proved that nuclear accidents can happen without any way to prevent it,” said a local mother and teacher during a Spring Break whale watching visit Wednesday.

News from Japan’s NHK public television Thursday noted that the government is warning residents of Tokyo – and millions of visitors, to included many Americans – not to give babies “less than a year old, to drink any tap water.”

The warning has caused massive stockpiling of bottled water throughout Tokyo with stores, vending machines emptied while panic Japanese people wearing soiled face masks and shocked looks in their eyes, scurry home to seal themselves in their homes with duct-tape due to fears that radiation may be reaching their lungs and other vital organs.

Also, NHK TV in Japan reported “regular release of radiation” has been reported over the past 10 days with engineers risking their own lives to cool down the damaged nuclear reactors where spent fuel rods are spewing dangers radioactive radiation and contamination.

NHK also noted there fears of “infection” have entered the hearts and minds of not only Japanese people – that were interviewed on NHK TV – but also here along the Oregon coast that’s seen a dramatic drop in Spring Break tourism due to the recent Tsunami and its continuing after-shocks with news from the Japanese government that they’ve received reports of radiation coming from their reactors being measured along America’s West coast. NHK has broadcast numerous reports about their country’s earthquake having a devastating impact on other country’s that report high health and economic concerns.

Post-Tsunami period an “after-shock” for coastal people

“It doesn’t help that we get radiation from Japan, but gas is now over $4 and the year before last was bad, last year was really bad and so far this year with the Tsunami and all, it’s getting ridiculous to do business,” explained Steven, a seller of antiques and collectables in the trendy Nye Beach area of Newport that faces the Pacific and far off Japan.

On Wednesday, for example, a large slab of concrete measuring nearly 14 feet across and 11 feet high – as it rocked under the pressure of curious seagulls – there were few Spring Break fans who usually cram this popular beach that features a lighthouse and miles of free beaches where the dogs were out again after a nearly two weeks of being kept indoors due to Tsunami and post-quake radiation fears from Japan.

“It’s good to be out again, and breathing the air. The dogs needed it,” said one Newport local on Wednesday.

World Health Organization issue radiation warning signs

According to a BBC report Thursday morning, there’s new World Health Organization and United Nations health advisories that have been sent out in special message and news release with guidance on how to detect “infection” from radiation.

The BBC reports: “Exposure to moderate levels of radiation – above one gray (the standard measure of absorbed radiation) – can result in radiation sickness, which produces a range of symptoms. Nausea and vomiting often begin within hours of exposure, followed by diarrhea, headaches and fever.

“After the first round of symptoms, there may be a brief period with no apparent illness, but this may be followed within weeks by new, more serious symptoms. At higher levels of radiation, all of these symptoms may be immediately apparent, along with widespread – and potentially fatal – damage to internal organs. Exposure to a radiation dose of four gray will typically kill about half of all healthy adults.

For comparison, radiation therapy for cancer typically involves several doses of between one and seven gray at a time – but these doses are highly controlled, and usually specifically targeted at small areas of the body.”

Here in Eugene at the University of Oregon, there’s been numerous recent lectures on the Japanese nuclear meltdowns, via programs such as the Environmental Law Conference and “Nuke Info Night” that call for a transition from nuclear to solar and other safe energy sources. In addition, April marks the 70th anniversary of the “Manhattan Project” that was partiality developed at universities and nuclear plants in the Pacific Northwest and California in the Spring of 1961.

At the same time, the University of Oregon’s “Japanese Student Organization” has put up a website SendaiEarthquakeRelief.org to coordinate information sharing, nuclear radiation education and fundraising efforts.

Today, the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is no longer repressed, but “transfigured with what’s happening now in Japan,” said one University of Oregon exchange student involved with the school’s Japanese Student Organization.

Moreover, students here are more concerned about what will be happening once Spring Break is over than just having fun while school is out with no cares in the world. “This issue of nuclear bombs and radiation is a shadow hanging over all human endeavor right now. I can’t think of anything more important that our futures under the cloud of radiation that’s now hurting so many people in Japan,” said one student who’s volunteering over Spring Break.

Looking back at the Manhattan Project’s terror and legacy

What’s chilling about the Manhattan Project documents are views from the project’s leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the pilot of the aircraft “Enola Gay” that dropped the first atomic bomb on the people of Japan.

Visitors to the Air and Space Museum in Washington can view a special exhibit about the Enola Gay and read words from its pilot Paul Tibbetswho, on Aug. 5, 1945, formally named his B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” after his mother. On Aug. 6, the Enola Gay left its base on Tinian Island in the Marianas with Tibbets at the controls, headed for history over Hiroshima. The atomic bomb, codenamed Little Boy, was dropped over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time. It produced a vast mushroom-shaped cloud that rose into the stratosphere. This haunting image would soon become the definitive marker of nuclear explosions.

“Radiation sickness would nearly double the initial death tool to well over 100,000 people during the subsequent years, and that was out of a population of 350,000 in Hiroshima at the time. To this day, there are more people dying in Japan from radiation sickness,” states the Smithsonian’s records.

The pilot, Paul Tibbets (who died in 2007 at age 92) who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, later commented:

“When I level out (after dropping the bomb) the nose is a little bit high and as I look up there the whole sky is lit up in the prettiest blues and pinks I’ve ever seen in my life. It was just great. I tell people I tasted it. ‘Well,’ they say, ‘what do you mean?’ When I was a child, if you had a cavity in your tooth the dentist put some mixture of some cotton or whatever it was and lead into your teeth and pounded them in with a hammer. I learned that if I had a spoon of ice cream and touched one of those teeth I got this electrolysis and I got the taste of lead out of it. And I knew right away what it was.”

Experts explained that “what it was” was the impact of the atomic bomb exploding. With a temperature at its core of around 60 million degrees Celsius — far hotter than the surface of the Sun – the bomb’s after action reported noted that “the initial flash vaporized some of the Japanese people and turned everyone openly exposed to it for around half a mile around into a fused carbon relic.”

As with the Tsunami “shock wave” after the recent massive quake in Japan, so too was a shock wave after the bomb hit Hiroshima, say experts, and “that initial flash killed more than 100,000 more people and flattened nearly as many buildings in the process.”

Even more strange is the reaction to the bomb’s devastation by visitors to the Air and Space Museum today, say media analysts today who view “Americans as too comfortable in their own lives to even consider or imagine what it must have been like to be there in Japan when the bombs dropped, and even today as radiation from next generation atomic bomb technology is killing and forcing people to leave their homes.”

Even more chilling is J. Robert Oppenheimer’s view on what he and his team of scientists created with the Manhattan Project some 70 years ago next month.

“If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of the Manhattan Project and of Hiroshima,” said Oppenheimer in his “Letters and Recollections.”

Nukes and nuclear reactor radiation a clear and present danger today

In a world where the United States and Russia still have more than 20,000 nuclear weapons — and Iran, North Korea and terrorists want to get their hands on nukes— what President Obama’s arms control and recent arms reduction treaties with Russia is all important.

“China, the only major nuclear power adding to its arsenal, is estimated to have 100 to 200 warheads. The treaty being negotiated says nothing about the nearly 15,000 warheads, in total, that the United States and Russia keep as backups — the so-called hedge. And it says nothing about America’s 500 short-range nuclear weapons, which are considered secure, or Russia’s 3,000 or more, which are chillingly vulnerable to theft,” stated a recent editorial in Washington after the recent meltdown of nuclear reactors spewing radiation into the atmosphere in Japan.

At the same time, recent congressional testimony from Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA and other agencies that monitor nukes what may be in the hands of terrorists, note that “we can’t ignore dirty bombs as a threat.”

In brief, dirty bombs are a kin to what’s happening now at the leaking nuclear reactors in Japan. A bomb destroys a nuclear reactor and causes a meltdown resulting in radiation being released. Thus, radiation is “dirty” because it can’t be cleaned-up and it goes on killing human life for long periods of time.

“Think of the dangers of radioactivity like glow-in-the-dark paint,” states an exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in nearby Portland. “Unlike modern luminous paint, which has to be activated by bright light, storing up energy to release later, radium lows constantly from its natural radioactive energy.”

The vast power of the nuclear Genie out of the Bottle

Also, there’s the problem of nuclear fusion that some scientists say is a clear and present danger at vulnerable nuclear reactors today.

For example, experts say that the Manhattan Project atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan at the end of WW II were “the equivalent of around 20,000 tons of TNT, while today’s nuke’s average about one million tons of TNT.”

Meanwhile, radioactive materials have been detected throughout Japan, China, in Europe and even here in Eugene and up and down the West coast, say experts who monitor the nuclear energy industry for radioactivity.

The ongoing nuclear reactor disaster and crisis that’s still going on in Japan is a reminder of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, say experts who worry about the nuclear “Genie getting out of the Bottle.”

Three Mile Island, for example, caused concern about the concept of the “China Syndrome,” that was also portrayed in the movie of the same name.

During a “China Syndrome,” say scientists, “the overheating reactor eats through the land beneath it and goes on to melt is way into the Earth’s core while releasing massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.”

At the same time, a “Nuclear Winter” occurs when global nuclear war or even a series of nuclear reactors impact the climate.

The famed American atmospheric chemist Richard P. Turco coined the term Nuclear Winter in 1983 when explaining to the United Nations that it’s “manifested by significant surface darkening over many weeks, subfreezing land temperatures persisting for up to several months, large perturbations in global circulation patterns, and dramatic changes in local weather and precipitation rates creating a harsh ‘nuclear winter’ in any season.

Not surprisingly, scientists today are fearful of the same sort of nuclear winter in the wake of the recent and ongoing crisis in Japan.

“On June 6, 2011, the Fort Calhoun pressurized water nuclear reactor 20 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska entered emergency status due to imminent flooding from the Missouri River. A day later, there was an electrical fire requiring plant evacuation.

Then, on June 8th, NRC event reports confirmed the fire resulted in the loss of cooling for the reactor’s spent fuel pool. The discussion includes specific details of the technical failures at Fort Calhoun, the risks of coolant loss at overcrowded “spent” fuel pools, and the national hazards of nuclear facilities along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and other water sites during the current period of floods and climate change.”

I may or may not post the other parts to this, as it was exceedingly strenuous on my comp for some reason, I guess because of all the overlays and whatnot I added. Incase I don’t post the rest, here is the link to watch it on youtube:

“If the American people learn that the motivations for all of this was to make a case to deprive them of their Second Amendment rights or to make a case to further the (Justice) department’s ability to further regulate gun rights within the United States, that would make them very angry,” said Rep. Trent Franks.

“We have an administration that has said ‘don’t let a good crisis go to waste’ and you wonder if this was actually a manufactured crisis,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) said on Fox News back in the summer.

Earth Watch Report – Extreme Weather

Southwestern areas of the United States, reeling from its worst drought in 50 years, may have 10 percent less surface water within a decade due to global warming, a study said Sunday.

While rainfall is forecast to increase over northern California in winter and the Colorado River feeding area, warmer temperatures will outstrip these gains by speeding up evaporation, leaving the soil and rivers drier, a research paper said.

Texas will likely be dealt a double blow with declining rainfall and an increase in evaporation, said the paper based on weather simulations and published in Nature Climate Change.

Overall for the area, “annual mean runoff in 2021-2040 is projected to be 10 percent less than in the second half of the 20th century,” co-author Richard Seager of Columbia University told AFP.

This “is a very significant decline given the stress on Colorado River-based water resources” for agriculture and household use, he added.

Runoff is rainfall not absorbed by the soil, running overland or in rivers.

According to the paper, California obtains most of its water from snow on the Sierra Nevada mountain range, while the Colorado River is fed from tributaries created by melting winter snowfall and summer rainfall.

The river provides water to seven US states and Mexico.

Texas, for its part, uses water from rivers and groundwater within its own borders, said the paper.

Average annual runoff for the region overall should drop by about 10 percent, and about 25 percent in spring for the Colorado tributary headwaters.

“Drying intensifies as the century advances,” added the paper.

“These projected declines in surface-water availability for the coming two decades are probably of sufficient amplitude to place additional stress on regional water resources.”

A buoy used to help guide barges rests on the bank after the water level dropped on the Mississippi River near Wyatt, Mo., this year. Some barge operators have lightened their loads or stopped running altogether because of low water levels. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Persistent drought conditions in the upper Midwest are threatening the nation’s waterways, with the mighty Mississippi River so low that barge traffic has been affected and may be forced to halt.

Over 90 barges have been either stranded or grounded due to low water in recent weeks, according to the Waterways Council Inc. (WCI), a public policy organization representing shippers and ports.

Low water levels are also likely to increase due to continuing dry conditions, compounded by the actions of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who have orders to reduce water flow from the Missouri River into the Mississippi.

“This could be a major, major impact at crisis level,” said Debra Colbert, senior vice president of WCI, according to Associated Press. “It is an economic crisis that is going to ripple across the nation at a time when we’re trying to focus on recovery.”

The main river in America’s largest river system, the Mississippi cuts through, or borders, 10 states, incorporating both the Missouri and the Ohio rivers as it travels from Minnesota in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south.

The Mississippi’s rich silt plains form one of America’s richest agricultural regions, spawning a comprehensive inland river transport system replete with ports, shipping lanes, locks, and levees.

According to Veronica Nigh, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the impact on freight is critical. Around 60 percent of U.S. corn and 45 percent of soybeans travel down the Mississippi for export. Coal, fertilizer, gas, and oil go up the river on the return journey.

“We’re experiencing water levels that have really been unprecedented for the last 50 or 60 years,” Nigh said on the AFBF website. “We’re getting close to the record low for the Mississippi that was set in 1940.”

It is an economic crisis that is going to ripple across the nation at a time when we’re trying to focus on recovery.

—Debra Colbert, senior vice president of Waterways Council Inc.

“With these low water levels, barges are only being loaded to 70 to 75 percent of their normal capacity,” she said.

According to Nigh, transportation by barge is cheaper and more efficient, one barge moving as much tonnage as 70 trucks.

It “saves consumers money, because they pay less for their products. It helps farmers. It helps businesses stay competitive in an export market,” she said.

Missouri Inflow Reduced

The National Weather Service has predicted “drier than average conditions” over winter for upper Midwest states. This will particularly impact the critical 180-mile stretch of river between the mouth of the Missouri River just north of St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio River, an area that will be impacted by Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) plans.

The USACE, which manages the waterways, will reduce the amount of water released into the Mississippi from Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River in South Dakota. The Missouri River provides around 60 percent of the water into the Mississippi but it is also impacted by the drought, and the Army corps says it is obliged, under orders from Congress, to ensure the smaller river remains at a certain level.

Maj. Gen. John W. Peabody, commander of the Mississippi Valley Division of the USACE, said the corps has been dredging continuously since July in an attempt to keep waterways clear, and has also been storing water where it can. Water stored in an area north of Iowa will be released, and the impact noticeable in about 3 weeks, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“We have to start thinking that we may not be able to have the water we are accustomed to for an extended period of time,” Peabody said. “That means we are going to have to husband our resources for when the situation gets truly dire. And in my personal estimate, we are not there yet.”

Last year the Mississippi River region was in crisis because of floods, water levels lapping at the top of flood walls. A year later the area is enduring an exceptional drought. According to a report by the Mississippi River Commission, river water levels have plunged to “near historic levels”, dropping over 50 feet in some areas over the course of the year.

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“Such wide variations in stages over successive years have never before been witnessed,” the report states.

Dr. Jeff Masters, meteorologist with the Weather Underground, says the drought impacting the United States this year is the worst since 1954. While damage costs from the impact of Hurricane Sandy are likely to be high around $50 billion, Masters says the cost of the 2012 drought will be higher, with estimates ranging between $75 and $150 billion.

More than 2.5 million acres of pinyon pine and juniper trees in the American Southwest during the past 15 years, killed by drought and mountain pine beetles

Pinyon pine forests near Los Alamos, N.M., had already begun to turn brown from drought stress in the image at left, in 2002, and another photo taken in 2004 from the same vantage point, at right, show them largely grey and dead. (Photo by Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey).

New research concludes that a one-two punch of drought and mountain pine beetle attacks are the primary forces that have killed more than 2.5 million acres of pinyon pine and juniper trees in the American Southwest during the past 15 years, setting the stage for further ecological disruption. The widespread dieback of these tree species is a special concern, scientists say, because they are some of the last trees that can hold together a fragile ecosystem, nourish other plant and animal species, and prevent serious soil erosion.

The major form of soil erosion in this region is wind erosion. Dust blowing from eroded hills can cover snowpacks, cause them to absorb heat from the sun and melt more quickly, and further reduce critically-short water supplies in the Colorado River basin.

The findings were published in the journal Ecohydrology by scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and the Conservation Biology Institute in Oregon. NASA supported the work.

“Pinyon pine and juniper are naturally drought-resistant, so when these tree species die from lack of water, it means something pretty serious is happening,” said Wendy Peterman, an OSU doctoral student and soil scientist with the Conservation Biology Institute. “They are the last bastion, the last trees standing and in some cases the only thing still holding soils in place.”

“These areas could ultimately turn from forests to grasslands, and in the meantime people are getting pretty desperate about these soil erosion issues,” she said. “And anything that further reduces flows in the Colorado River is also a significant concern.”

It’s not certain whether or not the recent tree die-offs are related to global warming, Peterman said. However, the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that while most of the United States was getting warmer and wetter, the Southwest will get warmer and drier.

Major droughts have in fact occurred there, and the loss of pinyon pine and juniper trees would be consistent with the climate change projections, Peterman said.

Pinyon pine and juniper are the dominant trees species in much of the Southwest, routinely able to withstand a year or two of drought, and able to grow in many mountainous areas at moderate elevation. The trees are common in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and may have expanded their range in the past century during conditions that were somewhat wetter than normal.

In some places up to 90 percent of these trees have now died, many of them during a major drought in 2003 and 2004. The new research concluded that most of the mortality occurred in shallow soils having less than four inches of available water in about the top five feet of the soil column.

Most of the tree mortality, the scientists said, was caused by trees being sufficiently weakened by drought that opportunistic bark beetle epidemics were able to kill the pinyon pine, and the vascular system of the juniper ceased to function.

Traditionally, pinyon pine and juniper were not considered trees of significant value. They were occasionally used for firewood, but otherwise small and not particularly impressive.

They perform key ecosystem functions, however, not the least of which is stabilizing soils and preventing erosion. They also provide some food in the form of pine nuts and juniper berries, and store carbon in their biomass, and in the soils beneath their canopies.

Obama Closing Air Defense System on U.S./Mexico Border: Texas &amp; America Vulnerable to Attack from Low Altitude Missiles and Aircraft

Call your Congressmen and Senators immediately and demand that the recent budget cuts do not affect the security of America’s borders. The Federal Government wastes billions of dollars on things they should not even be involved in, but securing our country’s borders is one of the jobs that the federal government is actually supposed to do!

Obama has always pushed massive cuts in the military as part of any budget cuts he will accept in fiscal deals. Obama seems to be getting what he wants, and it will leave America’s borders vulnerable to attacks and other infiltrations.

Air Force’s Air Defense Radar Systems along U.S./Mexico Border will SHUTDOWN on March 15th, 2013

On January 17th, 2013, Exelis Systems Corporation sent out an email (see email below) to all of its employees informing them that on March 15th, 2013 all TARS Air Defense Mission Operations will permanently cease. These TARS Air Defense sites were under the control of the United States Air Force. On January 15th, 2013, the Air Force informed Exelis (the defense contractor running the TARS sites) that the TARS sites will be shut down. Exelis tried to then negotiate with the Department of Homeland Security to see if they would take over the vital project, but it seems as though those negotiations have failed. What does this mean?

This means the southern border of the United States of America will be more vulnerable to attack from low flying aircrafts, low altitude missiles, and other infiltrations such as smuggling.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one Exelis employee had this to say about the announced closure of the TARS sites:

Many prophecies have been recorded and published referring to new lands rising from the seas. Edgar Cayce, Mother Shipton, the Hopi have spoken of the new land. Extraordinary how little we know and how much we yet to understand and discover……

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